Interview: Kevin Spacey

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The writer, director and star talks about Beyond the Sea.

By Jeff Otto

Beyond the Sea is no ordinary film for Kevin Spacey. The music and life of Bobby Darin has been a lifelong obsession for him since first discovering his parents' records as a young boy. The project has been a personal film close to his heart for many years, and he has struggled to bring Darin's story to life on the screen as he has always imagined it.

As Spacey's star has risen in Hollywood, along with his clout, Beyond the Sea began to develop from a mere vision to an actual reality. He has pulled together a very impressive cast of film and theatrical veterans as well as relative newcomer Kate Bosworth, who plays Sandra Dee, in what is likely to be the breakout performance of her career. The supporting cast includes John Goodman, Bob Hoskins, Brenda Blethyn, Greta Scacchi and Caroline Aaron.

Spacey himself had his hand in nearly every aspect of the production of Beyond the Sea, serving as writer, director, producer and even singing on the soundtrack. Spacey's voice is actually quite impressive. It may not be quite to the scope of Darin's vocal range, but comes very close and suits the film nicely.

IGN FilmForce recently spoke with Spacey in Los Angeles. He was excited to finally have his vision realized and ready for release. After the press tour to promote the film, he's even heading out on a musical tour to perform the music of Darin.

"It's me singing Bobby and talking about Bobby and talking a little bit about the movie," Spacey glows. "But I will be dressed as Bobby. I'm pulling out some of the costumes from the movie. We start in San Francisco, we play L.A., we play New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Atlantic City and we end in the Wayne Newton Theatre at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas!"

Wearing multiple hats in the production of Beyond the Sea required quick changes from actor to director on set. "It's just part of my character, I'm able to compartmentalize very well and do that, (snaps fingers) and I'm out of it, in it. But it was also interesting, in fact there were a couple of actors that at one point in shooting&#Array; I remember Greta, when we were shooting a scene like the first or second night, and it was freezing cold and we were outside in Berlin, [thinking] what were we doing&#Array; We did a take, and Greta said, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' and I said, 'What?' She goes, 'I just became very self-conscious. I suddenly realized that you were the director. And I said, 'And?' And she said, 'I suddenly saw you looking at me as the director and not me as Bobby.' And I said, 'Greta, Bobby is the director.' And she went, 'Oh,' literally, and then just completely relaxed&#Array;

"I really loved the experience, but that's also because I wasn't out there alone, I had a production team on this film who stood by me when we lost our financing. We were supposed to start shooting in July, and the money fell out, and I was building sets and I'd cast the movie for the most part, and we didn't start shooting until November. And there were these four and a half, almost five months, where nobody was sure if the movie was happening. I was sure the movie was happening. I never lost faith. This movie was going to happen even if I had to rob a bank. But it was tough because agents were saying, 'This movie's never going to happen.' They're all bulls***ting you. They don't have the money. I've got a studio offer. And this is not just cast but production people. Every single actor and production person stayed with us, and that dedication and that loyalty is what got me out of bed every day, because I didn't want to disappoint those people."

Spacey said that his discovery of Darin's music first came out of his mother's love of Darin. "She thought he was the greatest thing that ever walked the face of the earth, and I grew up in a house where Bobby Darin was playing all the time, as well as Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. My dad had a 78 collection, which I now have, that was pristine, so I grew up listening to big bands, that brassy sound, and by the time I was 15 my mother had thoroughly converted me. Then it was when I was in my early twenties that a couple of books came out about Bobby's life, and I didn't know anything about him. I just knew him as a performer and I might have seen a couple of things of him on television. But by that point he'd passed away. But getting a hold of his story, and learning what he had overcome, and learning how much he'd crammed into a 15 year career&#Array;

"Then I heard they were making a movie, or trying to make a movie at Warner Brothers, this is now the late '80s. I thought, 'This is the part for me. I'm born to play this part. I've got to play this part!' Unfortunately, they didn't think so. In all fairness, I hadn't done any movies and so I was slugging my way through and trying to get in film and television, I began to work in film and television and every single year, at least three times a year, my manager would call over to Warner Brothers and say, 'Hey, what's happening with that Bobby Darin movie? You guys ever going to make it? Kevin really wants to do it.' Well, then in '95 I started to emerge in film, and then fortuitously I did a series of films for Warner Brothers: L.A. Confidential, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The Negotiator were all Warner Brothers Pictures, so I then began my own relationship with the executives there, in particular Alan Horn, who runs the studio. I just basically begged him for about four years, because studios don't like to give up their titles even if they don't make the movies, and he finally cleared all roadblocks, and the end of '99 I got the rights in 2000. So I've really only had something to do with the movie for the last four years, but I started working on the music in '99, hoping that maybe I'd get the rights."